Acshully standing in a cupcake, a motorized cupcake, wearing a full-sized cupcake hat.

The motorized, full-sized cupcake

“I was just showing them how it works,” she says.

The two customers, Omar and Sharalee, are kinda looking on, not sure whether to laugh out loud or just eat their vanilla cupcakes ($3.25 each).

Julie, Omar and Sharalee

“We use it in parades,” says Julie.

“So that’s all you sell? Cupcakes?” I ask.

“Along with tea or coffee or other drinks,” she says. “Most people ask for milk ($2.50).”

Turns out I’m the only person on the planet who hasn’t been watching Cupcake Wars on the Food Network. Teams, like, have to go through rounds featuring taste, design, and speed of cooking. Winner takes away $10,000.

So cupcake craze, milk…what’s going on?

“Return to comfort foods,” says Julie. “Just like the kind of stuff grandma would spoil you with.”

But they’re full of butter and sugar and gunk, aren’t they? This in a time of nuts and twigs?

“Absolutely,” says Julie. “And now they’re saying butter isn’t so bad for you after all, and…”

“A little of what you fancy does you good,” I say. That’s what my Scottish grandma said when she wanted to spoil us kids with stuff our parents didn’t approve of.

“Exactly.”

So guess I’d better fork out for one for Carla. Julie says carrot is their signature cupcake, and red velvet is the most popular, but I kinda like the look of this vanilla one right here…

Still, $3.25. That's two boigers at Mickey D's...

Julie can see me stressing at parting with the money.

“You must definitely come back next Wednesday, between 5 and 9 p.m.,” she says. “We’re having a Sampling Wednesday. You sample our cupcakes – free! – and then you write down your favorites, and then the ones most people like most will be the ones we bake for the whole following week. Then we’ll do it again the next Wednesday.”